My little Fire Flower: Operation Cheer up Salem
by Sani2341
Summary: With Ruby away at Beacon, Salem has started to be more harsh on the people working for her than before. But maybe a round of surprise gifts can put an end to that.


So once more Monokub asked if anyone has some fluffy scenes to write as Omake/spin off for My Little Fire Flower.

And thus you all get enjoy this:

My little Fire Flower

Operation Cheer up Salem

* * *

Neo was sitting in one of the smaller rooms inside Salem's fortress. On the near black wooden table before her sat a mug containing her favourite tea, prepared just like she loved it, with only a drop of honey and a sprinkle of brown sugar added to sweeten the Green tea just the slightest bit. Taking a sip of the by now only warm beverage, the girl leaned back into the red fabric covering the back of the chair she was sitting on and thought back to what has been happening over the last few weeks.

Ever since Ruby had not been able to visit over the winter, Salem's mood had been deteriorating, causing her to act much harsher with Neo whenever she was in a bad mood. And Neo could even understand her to a certain degree, after all without Ruby present, this place felt just that much darker and that was not just because the girls white cloak would help light up the room she was in. The only good thing was that Tyrian was out on some mission, so she did not have to deal with his presence in addition to Ruby's absence.

As she let out a soundless sigh while setting down the now empty mug, the door opened, revealing Watts holding a mug of his own, his face twisted into an exasperated frown, while his tie was slightly undone for the first time since Neo had met him.

"Good evening Neo, I hope you don't mind my company." Watts asked as he sat down on one of the free chairs around the table. Pulling out a notebook and a pen Neo began to write her reply.

'Not at all 3 Hard day as well?' was soon written in her easily readable handwriting, the page held open for Watts to read it.

"You can't even imagine half of it miss." The man replied after he took a long sip from his mug, probably containing the strong black coffee he sometimes asked her to make him when he was busy laying the framework for the next steps in their plans. "I mean would it be to much to ask for that Salem just focused on going over the plans for after Ruby finds the Maiden at Beacon? But no the moment I even mention the little girl's name, she begins to worry about her." Pausing to take another sip from his drink he continued. "I fear for what she will do to the young miss Fall once she arrives here again, just so she won't have to worry about her."

Holding up her hand to signal she want to reply, Neo quickly began to sketch something in her note book before writing a short message. When she revealed the page to Watts, it showed a simple drawing of Ruby, covered with what seemed to be a Grimm's natural armour, the writing next to it asking 'Something like this?'

"Well that would probably be the start of it." Scratching his chin he paused for a moment before he continued. "But before that she would probably turn the girls shadow into a spawning pool so the girl could always have an army at her beck and call." Looking into his finished mug, Watts let out a deep sigh, and continued. "But for now we need to do something about this mood salem is in, or I'll snap and become as crazy as Tyrian."

"So you guys have been affected by her foul mood as well I see.", Hazel said as he stepped through the still open door. Closing it behind himself he sat down between the other two persons present and continued.

"Now I have an idea how we might be able to get her out of her funk so to speak." As the other two nodded for him to continue, Hazel obliged. "Maybe if we gave her some well thought out presents it might get her spirits up enough that we could endure until Ruby returns from Beacon."

Twirling his moustache Watts spoke up next. "That, might actually work." Standing up, he took his empty mug and turned to leave. "And I have just the idea what to do, but first I'll need to contact some people."

As the other man left the room, Hazel turned to the young girl still sitting next to him, who was holding up her note book. 'Sounds good, need any help from me?'

"No, you just focus on your own gift and maybe, just maybe we can make this work." With his piece finished, Hazel stood up to obtain the materials for his surprise as well, when a soft tug caused him to turn towards Neo once more, who was holding up a note reading 'Operation Cheer up Salem is a go.'

* * *

Raising his little sister after their parents had died, Hazel had learned one very important lesson. Whatever had a Woman's mood down, there was always some kind of chocolate that would raise it up, even if it was only for a short while. Thus a few days later, the giant of a man had locked himself in one of the many kitchens, making preparations to practice a skill he had not needed to use since before he had joined up with Salem, crafting chocolate for a girl.

First of he went over his ingredients once more, making sure he had enough dark, milk and white chocolate for everything he was about to do. Satisfied with the amount he had obtained and set aside of each of them he checked that he had enough of his special ingredients. Going over the assortment of more or less exotic things he had prepared, ranging from normal things like sugar to make caramel and nuts to more outlandish things like pepper and chillies, he was satisfied that he would be able to make at least one bar of chocolate that would please Salem, whatever her tastes might be.

Now that he had confirmed his selection of ingredients, Hazel set a trio of pots filled with water to boil, so he could melt the chocolate dragees in the metal bowls he had sitting next to them over the steam once the liquid boiled. Deciding to get the harder one done first, he also set a pan on the oven to heat up.

Once the water was boiling, he put a hand full of each type of chocolate into its respective bowl and put them onto one of the pots each. For the caramel he was going to put into this first batch of chocolate bars, he gave some of the sugar into the hot pan stirring it without pause until it turned slightly brown, at which point he quickly added a cup of water to prevent it from actually getting burned. A few moments later he took a teaspoon and laid lines of the caramel into the forms he had prepared beforehand. once all of it was used up, he filled the forms with the melted chocolate. Once every form with caramel init was filled with chocolate, he sprinkled crushed nuts on top of some of them, before he put the whole tray into the refrigerator for a few minutes.

Once the surface had begun to harden, he removed the still malleable chocolate from the cooling contraption and placed it in a nice dry and shaded corner of the kitchen, before he began to prepare a different set of forms for his next batch.

He continued in this fashion for most of the day, and in the end he had produced chocolate bars of every variety he could think of, and even some he had only done because of what he had leftover, like the peppermint strawberry chili bars that had just finished cooling. The only thing he still needed to do was fill the finished bars into small tin boxes so they would stay dry for the next few days until they all presented their gifts to Salem. And of course store them somewhere chilly where Neo wouldn't find and eat them.

* * *

Watts was for once pleased by the work others had done. After Hazel had suggested to prepare a gift for Salem to get her out of her moods so they could actually work efficient once more, he had immediately sent a request for a conversation to Hei 'Junior' Xiong, one of the better known information brokers of Vale. The day after the criminal had actually called him as requested.

"Hello is this the number of a Dr. Watts?" A male voice asked from the speaker of his scroll, barely not dissolving into static due to the bad reception they had on the lost continent.

"Indeed, I assume I am speaking with Mr. Xiong?" Watts replied carefully.

"Yes you are." THe other voice replied, sounding just a tad more friendly than before, or maybe the distortions were playing a trick on Watts.

"I heard you can get information on everything that happens in Vale, would that include Beacon Academy?" He asked as he leaned a tad forward on his balcony railing.

"Yes, but that will cost quite a bit extra. What is it that you want?"

"I would like to get all the footage you can grab containing a Ruby Fall, no matter how inconsequential it might seem." Watts answered as he brought his free hand up to rest his chin on. "Now the price is not my concern, just send the bill to Roman Torchwick, he'll know what to do once he reads my name on it."

"Well that might be a problem." The man on the other end said sharply.

"Why? Is finding videos of a Beacon student to hard for you?" Watts asked concerned.

"No but I don't trust Torchwick to do his part, do you have anyone else you would trust to handle your money?"

This Watts had not expected, but even so he could have Cinder handle the payment for him, although he should not implicate her directly, thinking for a moment he finally remembered the names of the elder falls personal henchmen.

"Then forward the bill to a Emerald Sustari, with the added note of handing it to her higher ups." Watts instructed.

"Well okay then, if your payment comes through, you should get the data you want in a few days."

And just as he had expected from a man with Hei's reputation, this morning Watts had received every bit of video feed that contained the young miss Fall or even just her cloak.

Currently he was watching the recording of her initiation and couldn'T help but shake his head over the fact that she had summoned wolfie at the very start of it because she had not prepared a landing strategy for herself. With how chaotic the rest of it developed, it would be best to leave this out of the video he was compiling for Salem so she could watch her granddaughter's successes at Beacon over and over again.

He went over the next few months' footage and while he did put one or two scenes of Ruby enjoying time with the raven haired girl on her team into the folder he would be using to compile the final video, it wasn't until he came a cross the footage of two fights of Ruby against an armored student that he had found the main part of his video compilation. It would serve the purpose of showing Salem how her granddaughter could protect herself well enough. After he finished going over the remaining footage he had a few more spars added to the folder of files he was going to use, as well as a few scenes showing that Ruby was not without allies of her own.

Now he only had to edit all of this into one video suited to reassure Salem that Ruby Fall was fine and did not need to be turned into her little clone just so she could protect herself by summoning Grimm from her own blood or whatever disturbing plan was currently on Salem's mind to assure the little Fall's safety.

* * *

Sitting in her small room Neo was hard at work getting her own present for Salem done. Yesterday she had printed out a small pile of pictures with Ruby in her white cloak, Cinder in one of her red dresses and Salem herself in the dark robes she always wears.

Now she had armed herself with a pair of scissors, paper glue, a pencil and a large empty canvas. First she began to trace a rough outline of one picture of Ruby sitting next to her grandmother onto the canvas, carefully denoting where what color should be most common.

After that she began to cut out the persons on the pictures stack to her left, putting them into piles based on the primary color of their clothing.

After those preparations were finished, the young woman got to work. She began with the Ruby's with her cloak flared open, revealing her mostly black clothes beneath, gluing them where the giant Salem's visible black veins would be on her otherwise white skin. Taking a step back after leaning the canvas against the wall, She was satisfied with her progress for now. Sitting back down infront of her present in progress, she picked up the pile of pictures of Ruby completely shrouded by her cloak and used them to fill the areas showing both the young girl's and the woman's pale skin. Once she was finished with that she once more took a few steps back to confirm it looked like she expected.

Repeating this process with the primarily red pictures of Cinder and the black ones of Salem, it took her a few hours of work but finally the scene of grandmother and granddaughter sitting next to each other on one of the black benches so common in Salem's home was finished. And unless one knew what to look for or stood less than a couple steps away, the cutouts of the three women blended near perfectly. Satisfied with her work, she carefully stored it at the back of her closet where it barely fit but would be safe from discovery by others until they all would meet up with Salem to present their gifts.

* * *

Ruby Fall was currently sneaking her way of Beacon campus towards the Emerald Forest. Luckily for the young girl Wolfie was poking just her head out of her cloak and keeping an ear and eye out for things the redhead had not noticed herself. This had saved her from discovery more than once, and Ruby was more gratefully for ehr guardian Grimm than she had been in quite a while because of it. Half an hour later the girl and her Grimm had arrived at the cliff they had been fired off during initiation and which they had climbed down at the start of a recent survival class which had them staying in the forest for the last week.

During that, Wolfie had noticed the thing they were now coming to investigate when no teachers would be watching them.

After Ruby had carefully climbed down the cliff, Wolfie stepped out of her shadow completely and began to lead the way towards the small cave that had piqued the Grimm's interest just a few days ago. As it was somewhat of the more used paths and animal trails leading through the trees, the two of them had to forge their own way through the branches and the underbush.

Their progress was slower than Ruby had hoped but when they finally reached the cave they had been looking for, the girl broke of a nearby branch and used Crescent Flames Burn Dust to ignite it, making a makeshift torch to allow her to see where she was going inside the dark cave. Carefully making her way down into the earth, closely followed by Wolfie, Ruby heard her stepps echo in the narrow passage, until it widened into a small cavern a few hundred meter further in. Letting the Grimm behind ehr pass ahead, the young miss Fall followed her companion until they reached exactly what they had hoped to find.

* * *

The next morning all three of them were ready to present their Gifts to Salem. Meeting up with the two men outside the red eyed woman's quarters, Neo noticed that Hazel was carrying a few metal storage boxes, while Watts had only an oversized scroll with him.

'So everyone ready?' The girl with the two colored hair wrote in her notebook, holding it out towards the two men with ehr right hand, while her own gift was held against her side by her left arm.

"I would hope so" Watts replied, after Hazel gave a short nod in affirmation, the moustached man stepped forward and opened the door before the three after a short knock. When Neo entered after the two men she was very surprised to hear Salem giggle. When she stepped a bit to the side so she could actually see what was going on, the girl noticed that Salem hadn't even noticed Watts Knocking or all of them entering as she was instead focused entirely on the globe like Grimm floating before her.

As the trio made their way closer to the Grimm like woman sitting on her throne like chair, they noticed what had the woman in such high spirits for the first time since Ruby left for the Huntsmen Academy in Vale. Inside the globe they could see a slightly distorted image of Ruby Fall, leaning against the wall of what appeared to be a small broom closet, her arms stretched forward out of view.

When they were only a few steps away, Salem finally noticed their approach and turned towards them.

"Oh hello you three. I just found out the most wonderful thing." As she continued she waved towards the floating Grimm with her hand. "Not only did Ruby find a small spawning pool inside the Emerald Forest, she even managed to create a tiny Oracle so she could see how we all are doing." This single sentence explained everything the three had witnessed since stepping inside this room. Where they had expected to find a depressed Queen of the Grimm, they had instead encountered Salem the doting grandmother of Ruby Fall.

"OH hey Neo you doing alright?" Ruby asked, her voice coming from the floating Grimm between them and Salem, which the other girl answered with a half nod.

Clearing his throat, Watts brought the attention back to himself. "That is indeed wonderful news, we were worried for your sake with how bad you took Ruby's absence my lady, so we prepared a few gifts for you."

"Can I see them? Please?" Ruby asked them. Turning to Neo, Watts motioned for her to go first, which she obliged without question. Pulling it up from under her Arm, Neo held the collage she had made so that both Ruby and Salem could get a good look at it.

"Whoa that looks awesome sis." The redhead informed all of them, as Salem leaned forward and took a hold of it. "Yes it is indeed lovely, thank you Neo."

Next Hazel presented his selection of handmade chocolates, and after a quick try of the top five in the box she had opened first, Salem seemed to enjoy the one she had tried first, the bar of dark chocolate with mint, strawberries and chilli, the most.

When Watts finally started the video he had prepared, Ruby soon pointed out various scenes she had been telling Salem about before their private communication had become somewhat more public.


End file.
